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Nithya's PhD research based at SOAS, University of London, explores how deagrarianisation among tobacco farmers in western Tamil Nadu was related to processes of groundwater depletion, tightening rural labour markets, and burgeoning non-farm sectors in the region. Her post-doctoral work with the 'Blood Bricks' project based at Royal Holloway, University of London, explores how debt-bonded brick workers in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, migrated from villages along the Mekong delta. The project explore how climate change, rural marketisation and microfinance debt combined to lead rural smallholders to debt bondage on brick kilns, and how their labour contributes to construction sector growth and Phnom Penh's material ascent. Overall, Nithya's is interested in rural livelihood transformation with a particular focus on environmental change and how it shapes and is shaped by social change.